


Overanalysis

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [9]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 11:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: Jared is not overthinking this.Jared is not overthinking this so hard that he’s been standing in a towel in front of his dresser for the last ten minutes.





	Overanalysis

Jared is not overthinking this.

Jared is not overthinking this so hard that he’s been standing in a towel in front of his dresser for the last ten minutes.

Jared finally opts for underwear, because that’s an easy enough choice and the towel’s making him feel like a loser. Except apparently that’s not the towel’s fault, because glaring at his dresser in his underwear also feels pretty stupid.

Okay, shirt now. Jared has like a million of those, including at least a half-dozen Hitmen ones. Not those, and not any Flames one, obviously, and not any of his dress ones for game days, since that’d be ridiculous, and not just because it’s over thirty degrees out.

Jared pulls open his drawer of plain t-shirts, shuts his eyes and grabs one before he can overthink it. Well, overthink it _more_. Plain white t-shirt. Totally casual. Done. This is easy. He’s practically finished. Well, if you count glaring at his dresser in underwear and a t-shirt as practically finished, because every single pair of shorts he owns look stupid, and pants feel too dressy, considering how hot it is outside.

Though wait: they’re mostly going to be inside, and theatre’s going to be air conditioned to goosebump level like it always is, so it’s not like Jared doesn’t have a reason to wear them. Plus, shorts are just asking for him freaking out if their bare knees brush. Pants it is.

That said, khakis _do_ feel too dressy when he puts them on, so he takes them off, swapping them for jeans and feeling completely ridiculous about it. More ridiculous when he starts questioning whether he should actually wear these ones or the skinny ones that he can barely fit his ass in. Those jeans are like a fucking torture device, he doesn’t even know why he still has them, why he bought them at all, and now he’s considering _wearing_ them?

He stays in his normal, non-torture jeans, and feels way too fucking proud of himself about it.

*

At 5:15 Jared heads out onto the front porch. He doubts Marcus will be early — he’ll probably be late, honestly — but he doesn’t want his parents answering the door if he’s wrong. They’d definitely recognize Marcus, and they’d _definitely_ remember the shit he got up to last season. Jared has had literal conversations with them about it when Marcus was just ‘that talented dude on the team who makes terrible choices, don’t be like that, Jared’ (not that Marcus _isn’t_ still that, he’s just kind of…more, now. Jared doesn’t want to think about it).

Jared keeps checking his phone, but quits once he realises he’s checked it seven times between 5:26 and 5:27, and that he’s getting annoyed at Marcus for being late before he’s even _on time_.

Except then he _is_ late.

Jared clenches his hands in his lap to avoid the temptation to keep checking his phone, knowing it’s just going to slow time down. Not that it seems to help any, because every second seems to be matched by the thump of his heartbeat.

Maybe he found out Jared was gay. There’s no way Raf would have told him, Jared doesn’t have to know Raf for more than a few weeks to know he’s a take it to the damn grave kind of guy, but some of Jared’s Hitmen teammates know too, and it’s not like Calgary’s a huge enough city it’s impossible for them to know Marcus. Hell, Meyer just got picked by Calgary at the draft (Jared is trying not to be jealous, with limited success), and for all Jared knows he got a welcome from the Flames players still in town, Marcus included. That doesn’t _sound_ like Marcus, but like. It’s possible. 

Or maybe Jared’s been really obvious. Even more obvious than he thought. Maybe Marcus figured out Jared was interested before Jared even figured it out. Maybe it’s an ego boost — not that he seems to need one — stringing along the thirsty kid. He seems like the kind of guy who’d get off on someone thinking he’s hot, even if he didn’t give a shit about them either way. 

Jared tries to glare his bouncing knee into submission, but it unsurprisingly doesn’t work. He can feel sweat gathering fucking everywhere, behind his bouncing knee and in the crooks of his elbows, a trickle of it down his back, because it’s fucking hot out and Jared’s been out there forever, and fuck. Jared’s going inside. He’s obviously not coming, so what’s the fucking point boiling in his stupid pants for no reason.

The AC hits like a blast when Jared steps inside, kicking his shoes off (but quietly, because he doesn’t want his parents hearing) and heading upstairs. He lands hard on his bed, enough that it makes a protesting noise under his back. That’d just be his fucking luck: get stood up, break a bed. Maybe break his back in the bargain, because fuck, ow, the mattress was not good enough to cushion that impact.

Jared blows out a breath, finally pulling his phone out for the sole purpose of texting Raf to tell him Marcus is fucking douchebag.

The doorbell rings, and Jared forgets the text in favour of nearly breaking his fucking neck in the race for the door.

“It’s for me,” Jared yells, going double-time down the stairs in case his parents ignore him. Would serve him right if it’s just some door to door salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness or something, but better that than his parents wondering why the hell Bryce Marcus is on their porch. Jared throws the door open without checking the peep hole ( _please_ don’t be a door to door salesman, he can’t take that last blow right now), and only then realises how fucking eager he’ll look if it is Marcus.

“Hi,” Marcus says.

“Hi,” Jared says, then, “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” Marcus says. “There was some accident, they shut down like almost every lane.”

“It’s fine,” Jared says. “Whatever. It’s whatever.”

“I wanted to call you, but I don’t have your number,” Marcus says.

“I said it was fine,” Jared snaps. “I guess we’ll skip dinner or something?”

“I’m only ten minutes late,” Marcus says, and Jared wants to retort that obviously he can’t tell time either, because it’s been at least a half hour, except he checks his phone, and holy shit, it’s only 5:41.

“Eleven minutes,” Jared mumbles.

“I think we’ve still got time to eat,” Marcus says.

“Who’s that?” Jared can hear from the hallway.

“Back by curfew!” Jared yells, shoving his feet in his shoes without bothering to unlace them, and shuts the door behind him. “Let’s go,” he says, and takes the porch stairs two at a time.

“You _do_ have curfew,” Marcus says, trailing behind him.

“Yeah, but not at _dinnertime_ ,” Jared says. “My parents aren’t ridiculous.”

“When’s your curfew?” Marcus says.

“Why?” Jared asks. “Planning on keeping me out late?”

Marcus shrugs. “It’s probably a long movie.”

“Don’t worry,” Jared says. “I’m good.”

“Sorry I was late,” Marcus says again once they get into his car, and then, “Give me your number so I can let you know next time?”

“Who says there’ll be a next time?” Jared says, but takes Marcus’ phone, unlocked and already on his contacts page. It is very hard to just type his number in and hand it back. His thumbs want to snoop. “Maybe just don’t be late again.”

“Car accidents aren’t my fault, dude,” Marcus says, and then Jared can _see_ the moment he realises he’s just set Jared up spectacularly.

“I’m too big a person to comment on that,” Jared says.

Marcus snorts, and to be fair, that is objectively untrue. It’s too easy if Marcus sets him up for it, is already expecting it coming. There’s no satisfaction to be had there. Besides, what if Jared’s chirp is underwhelming after the anticipation? Better to save it.

He had a _really_ good one though. Dammit.

“So uh,” Marcus says. “Good day? What’d you do?”

“Are you trying to make small talk?” Jared asks, because the answer is ‘like actually nothing, I couldn’t even pay attention to video games I was so wound up’, and that, obviously, is not something he’s going to admit.

“Just asking, man,” Marcus says, and proceeds to tell him about how he spent the entire day with a personal trainer, which makes Jared look like a total slacker in comparison, and also keeps putting really unfortunate images in his head. Or, like, unfortunate in how distracting they are. Guys working out should not be hot. Guys working out usually _aren’t_ hot, they get sweaty and they stink and it’s just a brick in the mortar of their development, another tool in their arsenal.

Logic does not get Jared to stop thinking about it. His brain and his…hind brain? Totally different paths right now.

Marcus parks in front of a steakhouse, which is about the safest possible bet in Calgary. It’s dressy enough that Jared’s glad he’s not wearing basketball shorts or something, makes the absurd amount of time picking his clothes feel, like, not _worth_ it, but less absurd. Marcus is in shorts, but the dressy kind, if you can even call them that, and a stupid striped polo, and since that’s basic bro uniform during summers, the hostess doesn’t bat an eye about it before seating them.

Jared’s never been the kind of person to go for the most expensive thing on the menu — not on his dime and definitely not one someone else’s — but it’s a freaking _steakhouse_ , and after Marcus orders a New York strip topping thirty bucks, Jared does the same with an internal wince. It’s probably like three seconds of his ice time, Jared knows, but it still feels rude.

“I’m kind of hyped for Avengers,” Marcus says. “Like, I kept meaning to see it, but basically all the guys left Calgary by the time it came out —” 

The guys being the Flames, Jared assumes, and he’s so jealous that Marcus could have gone to a movie with a Flame. Never mind the fact he _is_ one.

“—and you can’t do movies alone,” Marcus says.

Oh.

Jared’s figured it out. All that wondering, all that driving himself nuts last night, and Marcus just needed someone — anyone — to go to Age of Ultron with him because none of his friends are around.

Jared takes a sip of water, cracks an ice cube between his teeth, hating the sharp cold of it but crunching it into pieces anyway.

“You saw the first one, right?” Marcus says.

“Yeah,” Jared says, swallowing the shards of ice. “And this one, actually.”

“Dude, why didn’t you say that?” Marcus asks.

Jared shrugs. “I’m cool seeing it again,” he says, because that’s less pathetic than, ‘because it’s the one you offered to take me to’.

“Nah,” Marcus says, pulling his phone out. “Let me pull up the listings, we’ll pick something you haven’t seen.”

“You just said you were hyped to see The Avengers,” Jared says.

Marcus shrugs. “I’ll see it another time,” he says.

Well fuck, now Jared’s theory is _useless_. Marcus has to stop doing this to him.

“What about Jurassic World?” Marcus says. “That looks cool.”

That looks absolutely awful.

“Or Entourage?” Marcus says.

“Jurassic World sounds good,” Jared says quickly. He doesn’t want Marcus getting tips from Entourage. He’d probably get even worse. 

“Buying tickets,” Marcus says, which leaves Jared wondering if he already bought some for the Avengers. He’s frowning down at his phone, and Jared realises after a second it’s his concentrating face.

It’s — kind of adorable.

Jared looks away, crunching some more ice to keep himself from saying something stupid. He doesn’t know what it’ll be, but right now he doesn’t trust himself at all.

Neither of them say much of anything once the food arrives. That tends to be the way hockey players eat, all focus on getting the calories into your mouth, talk later, dude, especially when you’re stacking calorie after calorie after calorie during the offseason to get back the weight you lost during the season.

Jared doesn’t know if the steak is a thirty dollar steak, but it’s really good, and between ten ounces of steak, mashed potatoes and veg, he doesn’t even know if he has room for popcorn. Not that he actually stops Marcus from buying some at the concession stand. That’d be stupid. He’ll find room eventually.

Or right away it turns out, because between the two of them, they demolish the popcorn before the opening credits are through.

After Marcus discards the popcorn bag — on the floor, and Jared’s judging him for it, even though he’d have to go through a packed row to throw it out properly — his arm nudges Jared’s on the armrest they share.

On the one hand, Marcus can’t just have the whole arm rest. Dude gets everything he wants: Jared’s not letting that extend to arm rests too. They can share it or he can’t have it at all. 

On the other hand, Jared is going to go nuts if he spends two hours with his arm shoved up against his. He’s already kind of freaking out after ten seconds, wondering if Marcus is going to pull his arm away or wait for Jared too, if Jared’s making it weird by refusing to move his arm. Not that it’s his fault: he had it first. Marcus can’t just assume —

Marcus shifts a little, arm pressing more firmly against Jared’s, and it’s so fucking stupid, what the fuck, arm contact should not give you a boner, what is he, fourteen? And yet here he fucking is, every single bit of his attention on where they’re touching. Their arms, yeah, but Marcus is sitting slouched and wide-legged, so his knee brushes against Jared’s more than once, and it’s less contact than Jared has with like, anyone, he’s hugging dudes at camp on a daily basis during scrimmages, through padding or not, but Marcus’ knee nudges his, his knuckles brush the back of Jared’s hand, and he’s completely unable to deal with it. This is a disaster.

Jurassic World is about as awful as Jared expected it to be, which is also a disaster, because he’s not enjoying it enough to get distracted from the way Marcus’ shoulder is aligned with his, the way he scratches his cheek, over stubble Jared can see glint gold even the dark, before putting his arm back down, somehow even more snug against Jared’s. This can’t be accidental. Or maybe it is? Most guys Jared knows don’t have much personal space left, especially once they hit the WHL and started bunking together, so maybe Marcus doesn’t even notice, just sits this way with whoever, steals the arm rest on flights and on the team bus, figures this is the same thing.

Deciding that does not make things feel any less overwhelming, but he tried. He’s doing his damn best, unless his best would be to pull his arm away — and it absolutely _would_ be, but he just. Doesn’t. Can’t let Marcus win.

Thankfully a bunch of people getting eaten by dinosaurs is enough to kill the boner he thought was going to kill _him_ , and he’s mostly respectable once they’re leaving the theatre, at least on the outside.

“What’d you think?” Marcus asks.

“It was so bad,” Jared says, because he’d paid enough attention to ascertain that, at least.

“I thought it was awesome,” Marcus says.

“That just proves my point, Marcus,” Jared says.

“It had _dinos_ in it, Jared,” Marcus protests. “Don’t diss dinos.”

He’s saying Jared’s name. Why is he saying Jared’s name. Jared didn’t tell him he could say his name.

“Dinos are for five year olds, _Bryce_ ,” Jared says, and doesn’t understand why Marcus smiles at that. Who smiles at being compared to a five year old? Jared can’t even trust his own chirps to work now. 

Walking outside is more of a relief than a blow after the freezing AC, except for the fact that outside is going to lead to the car, and then the car to his house, and — 

“So,” Marcus says. “I’ll take you home?”

Jared really, really doesn’t want to go home. He looks away, eyes drifting toward the marquee. 

“Avengers starts in ten minutes,” Jared blurts out, and when he looks back, Marcus is blinking at him. “Want to do a double feature?”

“Don’t you have curfew?” Marcus asks.

“Yeah, but they’re not really strict on weekends,” Jared says. Not a lie: as long as he texts them and lets them know he’s just at a late movie and not drunk or stoned somewhere, and they know he’s got a sober drive home, they’ll be cool with it.

“You’ve seen it, though,” Marcus says.

“I don’t mind seeing it again,” Jared says.

Marcus grins at him then, all blinding white teeth. Jared hates the way his stomach flips over at that.

“Let’s do it,” he says, still grinning, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a little kid, and Jared finds himself grinning back.


End file.
